What makes an NLP Practitioner?

Its a few weeks away from the NLP Practitioner event I am running in Leeds with Tranceforming NLP and I have been pondering on the issue of what makes an NLP Practitioner. Just as "the map is not the territory", the certificate is not the training!

There are no universally agreed standards for NLP and different NLP schools have in many instances fundamentally different ideas about what constitutes being an NLP Practitioner. The Society of NLP details NLP Practitioner requirements as being the following -

A minimum ability to utilize the basic skills, techniques, patterns and concepts of NLP™:

Behavioral integration of the basic presuppositions of NLP:
The ability to change the process by which we experience reality is more often valuable than changing the content of our experience of reality.

The meaning of your communication is the response you get.

All distinctions human beings are able to make concerning our environment and our behavior can be usefully represented through the visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory, and gustatory senses.

The resources an individual needs to effect a change are already within them.

The map is not the territory.

The positive worth of the individual is held constant, while the value and appropriateness of the internal and/or external behavior is questioned.

There is a positive intention motivating every behavior; and a context in which every behavior has value.

Feedback vs. Failure - All results and behaviors are achievements, whether they are desired results for a given task/context or not.

Rapport Establishment & Maintenance
Verbal & Nonverbal Pacing & Leading
Verbal and Nonverbal Elicitation of Responses
Calibrating through Sensory Experience
Representational Systems (Sensory Predicates and Accessing Cues)
Milton Model, Meta Model
Elicitation of Well-Formed Goals, Direction, and Present State
Overlapping and Translating Representational Systems
Eliciting, Installing & Utilizing Anchors in all sensory systems
Ability To Shift Consciousness
Submodalities (utilizing including Timelines, Belief Change, Swish Patterns, etc.)
Omni Directional Chunking
Accessing and Building Resources
Content & Context Reframing
Creating & Utilizing Metaphors
Strategy Detection, Elicitation, Utilization, And Installation
Demonstration of Flexibility of Behavior and Attitude

This is what all SNLP trainers should be teaching on an NLP Prac course and of course different training styles and different ways of checking (and not checking?) that students hve reached an appropriate level of capability. However none of this IMO fully explains what an an NLP Practioner is as being a practitioner is more than merely rolling out a series of techniques and/or demonstrating an understanding of NLP. Since the 1990s when I first trained in NLP, I have actually only met very few NLPers who have been able to demonstrate a real ability to use their NLP skills in either a one to one or business context in a helpful and useful manner.

The absolute best way to improve NLP skills is to practice, practice and practice some more. NLP "practice groups" can be useful, but there really is no substitute for working with people in individual and/or group situations. Sometimes what is taught in a seminar simply doesn't work in a real client situation and I have learned from seeing literally hundreds of clients that "the manner" of a practitioner is as important as the ability to to integrate and use the skills in the NLP tool kit. These days my interest is in developing new approaches from using my insights gained from NLP Training.

Many NLPers simply attend a series of courses, but don't earn a living from using their NLP skills and don't get an ongoing opportunity to practice their skills which IMO is a key ingredient in becoming an NLP Practitioner. Michael Breen once made the point that all NLers are always practitioners, regardless of grand certifications and I agree fully with this view.

www.nickkemp.com